[TriLUG] Firewall hardware recommendations?

jeremyp at pobox.com jeremyp at pobox.com
Tue Aug 14 16:41:59 EDT 2001


I'm interested in setting up a basic firewall to protect a few servers in
a DMZ-type setup.  We have a locked-down firewall (a vendor's proprietary
product) for internal computers, but it doesn't have the options for a DMZ
that I need.  I'm looking to spec-out a basic computer to use for a
firewall, but budget is VERY minimal.  Of course it will run Linux. :)

Since either IP tables or IP chains is kernel based, only processor and
memory should really matter, right?  I'd like to use RAID for
fault-tolerance, but is software raid with IDE drives okay, since the
machine doesn't access the disks too much?  Has anyone worked with
software RAID under Linux?  I have hardware RAID cards with SCSI on the
servers -- they're wonderful, but that's way too expensive for this.

What processor speed and memory can I get away with?  I would classify our
traffic level as "small to moderate" -- everything is behind a T1 anyway,
so that limits traffic to some extent.  Maybe 10,000 hits/day on web
servers, plus other stuff (FTP, some streaming media stuff).  Also, can I
just use StayOnline's basic $22 netgear card for the Ethernet cards?

Thanks for any advice,

Jeremy

-- 
My software never has bugs. It just develops random features.




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